Who's lit the rooftop campfire on the Polar Express disappearing hobo car?

The illuminated campfire has been done. To my knowledge, once the campfire is "lit", the 'ol Hobo is stuck outside. As for the remote/auto flip, the Hobo rotates on pins. Not to say it would be impossible, but a powered flipper would be very difficult to pull off.

Don't forget, the opposite side from the Hobo is the roof. You're talking about almost no space to work with.

Gilly

Thanks for the reply, Gilly. I do know however that the campfire can be made to go on and off as the hobo appears and disappears because an OGR forum member, Springoflife, (Mike Romanucci) did it. I corresponded with him three times in August 2012 and he emailed me some info and drawings and told me he'd have to look in his files for pics and additional diagrams and info but that it might take awhile since he was "going through a rough stage in my life" at that time. Further attempts to contact him with emails met with no replies from him. Perhaps someone who reads this post might know what ever became of Mike or might at an earlier time have gotten complete info, instructions, diagrams, drawings or photos from him outling how he rigged his hobo car to make the campfire light go on and off as the hobo is rotated into and out of sight.

I don't think this would be hard to do and even include the ability to have the fire light up when the Hobo is spun into place. The only hard thing that I see would be separating the two sections of roof/Hobo without damaging either one in order to get inside to place an LED.

Most that I have seen have left the hobo up when lit. The tri-color flickering led looks good. Driver in the car. A shaped drip of silicone for the fire shape.

The rub for the flipping is the "axle" or pin that the hobo rotates on. You would have to replace that with some hobby tubing and feed the wires through it. Hiding the wire to the led on the camp fire side would take a little paint. I am talking #30 wire. Hiding the wire in the tubing won't work because the pins on axle ends set in a recess in the molded roof.

So, way too much time for an effect. Just leave 'em up. 

It would be nice to see a detailed tutorial on how to convert the factory-shipped PE Hobo campfire into a flickering LED campfire. I am not an electronics guru. The conversion project has to be simple to understand and relatively easy to accomplish.

Not necessarily so. Contacts out near the end would be much easier and still leave the ability to flip the roof.

Now, there's a good thought, Big Jim! I may have get one now, just to try that out.

Terence, it would be easy to understand, not so simple to accomplish. You'll feel humbled the first time to try to get the roof off without breaking it.

The other issue I didn't like was the way the hobo rotates. Since he gets wacked by tunnels all the time(I guess flat top tunnel got him originally, the dark side of the movie) I always thought it would be cool if he hit a tunnel and disappeared.

I have been going to light mine but I have the Hobo fixed in the up position as I added fixed snow to my passenger car roofs to look more like the movie. Have been going to light the fire was looking at the Lemax fires and a circuit for the car to maintain the correct voltage. There is also the flickering fire sets by Evans.

http://www.modeltrainsoftware....kering-fire-kit.html

The flickering effect is very easy to accomplish.  I use the flickering tea light bulbs and run them from track power.  Here's one that powered two of the bulbs for a flickering firebox effect in a steamer, the same circuit will work for the campfire with one or two flickering LED bulbs.  I get my bulbs at the Dollar Store in tea lights, cheapest source I've found.

I'll bet the Hobo could be automated using an RC servo, but I don't have the set to look at.

Here is my idea on this subject. Keep in mind that it is only an idea and that I have yet to try this. Again, I think the hard part is separating the two halves of the rotating Hobo Fire/Roof.

Additional circuitry, such as John's, may be needed.

I'm all for it!  I would like to do it on mine, but at last count I have about 1,329 other projects to do first. 

I used those  on my scale heavyweight Polar Express car.  The effect is very neat with a little cotton on top of the LEDs.

I just used John's circuit with some tea light candles I got on sale (8 for about $6) at a local craft store on my Lionel PE set.  I installed it in the regular coach included in the regular starter set.  I'm not a fan of how the factory made hobo car looks, and this filled its place nicely.  The fire pit and hobo are from the woodland scenics hobo set.

Excellent job, Jake and John!!

I wish y'all would stop putting great ideas in my head,  having way too many projects on the back burner as it is I'm never going to finish my work before quitting time.

Matthew,

Who says you need to finish your work before quitting time?  Work will always be there.  There is only so much time in one's lifetime to get train projects done.

Keith (Michigan & Ohio Valley Lines),

What ever happened to the CP Holiday Train project?

Dave